Ophelia, come here.—(to
CLAUDIUS) Your Majesty, we will hide.
(to
OPHELIA)—Read from this
prayer book, so it looks natural that you’re all alone.
Come to think of it, this happens all the time—people act
devoted to God to mask their bad deeds.

CLAUDIUS

(aside) Oh,
’tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

55O heavy burden!

CLAUDIUS

(to himself) How right he is! His
words whip up my guilty feelings. The whore’s pockmarked
cheek made pretty with make-up is just like the ugly actions
I’m disguising with fine words. What a terrible guilt I
feel!

POLONIUS

I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

POLONIUS

I hear him coming. Quick, let’s hide, my lord.

CLAUDIUS and
POLONIUS withdraw

CLAUDIUS and
POLONIUS hide.

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET enters.

HAMLET

To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

60Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

65Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the
rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

70That makes calamity of so long life.

HAMLET

The question is: is it better to be alive or dead? Is it nobler to
put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to
fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them
once and for all? Dying, sleeping—that’s all
dying is—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks
that life on earth gives us—that’s an
achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe
to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch: in
death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come,
after we’ve put the noise and commotion of life behind
us. That’s certainly something to worry about.
That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our
sufferings so long.